The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 86

The Saber
Depression gripping the nation. After
the release of Three Little Pigs, political
cartoonists began using the pig to
symbolize the overall mood of the Depression.
20 The two shortsighted pigs
represented “self-inflicted suffering
and economic adversity.” 21 The Practical
Pig, who built his house with bricks
and ended up saving the other two pigs
from the “big, bad wolf,” was seen as
far-sighted and representative of Roosevelt
and his plans for the country.
In the end, it was the pig who exhibited
“old-fashioned virtues, hard work,
self-reliance, self-denial” who was the
successful one. 22 The lyrics of the song
“Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?”
also became an anthem for Depression-era
America, a rallying cry promoting
the future success of the New
Deal. 23 Even before the Depression hit,
Disney’s animated shorts were espousing
morals and American cultural
themes of resourcefulness, finding usefulness
in the useless, and finding entertainment
and hope in the ordinary,
the mundane, and the hopeless. This is
especially true in the first appearance of
Disney’s Mickey Mouse in 1928’s Steamboat
Willie. Disney told journalist Harry
Carr in 1931 that he couldn’t say exactly
how the idea of Mickey Mouse came
to be, but that he “wanted something
appealing, and we thought of a tiny bit
of a mouse that would have something
of the wistfulness of (Charlie) Chaplin
... a little fellow trying to do the best
he could.” 24 That “tiny bit of a mouse ...
trying to do the best he could” theme
would resonate immediately with the
American people and would continue
4